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[14:01] <Tao> Even with the Siege Virus dead, the Valletta was not quick to abandon Ahsa. The order had come down from Kayoko that they would hold position around the planet until the full seventy-two hours were up, just to be certain of their success. This had also given time for Liane and Rora to conduct their investigation on the planet's surface…-
[14:01] <Tao> And so they waited, most of the bridge staff in high spirits. There were holdouts, of course - Franco remained his normal stern self, and the Captain herself was… unusually quiet. She sat amid a storm of holographic readouts and maps, lost in her own thoughts.-
[14:01] * Tao is now known as Kayoko
[14:01] <Kayoko> Eventually the night shift came around, freeing the bridge staff to sleep and eat if necessary. Though she could use both, when Kayoko finally left she didn't take the path towards the cafeteria or to the dormitories, but to an out of the way portion of the lower deck: The Observatory.-
[14:01] <Kayoko> It was a wide, narrow room built along the leading edge of the ship, below the jutting prow formed by the upper decks. The room was cast entirely in tinted, transparent surovite, gently curved to give a perfect view of what was both ahead and below the ship. A heavy, radiation shielded "eyelid" could be shut over the window in case of emergency, but otherwise the room was empty aside from
[14:01] <Kayoko> a few wide, comfortable benches.-
[14:01] <Kayoko> Kayoko, being a difficult sort, had chosen not to sit on them and instead had sat down directly on the transparent floor. It left her looking like she was hanging above the surface of Ahsa, unsupported, her silver chain dangling from one hand as she watched the planet spin slowly beneath her.
[14:07] <Minaplo> [She would sit there in quiet contemplation for awhile, but eventually she would feel the brief, faint twist in space before Idris appeared, a few metres from her side.]
[14:17] <Kayoko> "Hello, Idris," she said. She gave the chain a spin and caught the charm in her fist as she glanced his way. "What can I do for you?"
[14:18] <Minaplo> ["I thought I'd let you know that medical has upgraded its likelihood of the cure working to 99.1%."]
[14:25] <Kayoko> "Oh yes. It'll work, I have no doubt about that."
[14:28] <Minaplo> ["Ah."-
[14:28] <Minaplo> ["Are you happy for me to stay awhile, Captain?"]
[14:31] * Kayoko smirked. "Hardly much point in sending you away when you're functionally omnipresent here, I'd say."
[14:33] <Minaplo> ["I am, but those functions are my own, and can be withdrawn when requested." Said Idris with his own small smile.]
[14:45] <Kayoko> "I know the drill. Go on, sit down."
[14:47] <Minaplo> [And so he did.-
[14:47] <Minaplo> ["How are you feeling?"]
[11:16] <Kayoko> "Mm…" she murmured, and she actually took a moment to consider her response. "I think we lost today. Not all that happy about it, to be honest."
[11:31] <Minaplo> ["Ah. With the Overseers?"]
[11:34] <Kayoko> "With the Overseers."
[11:38] <Minaplo> [Idris chuckled a little.]
[11:41] <Kayoko> "Please tell me you're not one of the Evangelions that laughs at the puny mortals, Idris," Kayoko said, giving him a glance out of the corner of her eye. "You seemed so interesting."
[11:46] <Minaplo> [Idris laughed a little more. "No, life has seen fit to give me a worthy humility of my lot, Alhamdulillah. No, it is just…"-
[11:47] <Minaplo> ["Well. We did so well against the Freepath Devoted, but we should've realised that the Overseers are the big boys of the galaxy for a very, very good reason." Said Idris.]
[11:49] <Kayoko> "They are for now. Next time I intend to be better."
[12:04] <Minaplo> ["And what will that look like, Captain?"]
[12:13] * Kayoko grimaced. "… well I don't know yet, which is why I'm here and not asleep in my cabin."
[12:16] <Minaplo> ["Fair enough."-
[12:17] <Minaplo> ["Well, I'm happy to brainstorm with you. Can I interest you in a brainstorming sundae?"]
[12:42] <Kayoko> "Pretty sure that's not a thing," Kayoko noted, although she was watching him curiously. "But sure, I'll take one. Strawberry, if you have it."
[12:58] * CakeyCake (~ten.nozirev.soif.apalhp.841-66-511-89-loop|ekaCyekaC#ten.nozirev.soif.apalhp.841-66-511-89-loop|ekaCyekaC) has joined #frontierwar2
[13:19] <Minaplo> ["Of course."-
[13:19] <Minaplo> [He held out his hand to her, and lo, there was a sundae, with strawberry sauce, topped with a sprinkle of lush blueberries.]
[13:43] * Kayoko gave the sundae an unblinking stare for a second before meeting Idris' eyes. She accepted the sundae, plucked a blueberry off the top and popped it into her mouth.-
[13:43] <Kayoko> "Cute," she said blandly. "I hope you weren't expecting to surprise me. Evangelions always work it out."
[13:45] <Minaplo> ["Haha. No, it's nothing of the sort." Said Idris.-
[13:47] <Minaplo> ["I mean, I knew, but not because of my power. I apprenticed with Ms. Chiisana for some time." Said Idris. "She told me about you, and that was that. She also taught me how to make sundaes."]
[13:58] <Kayoko> Her expression seemed to tighten very slightly, although it was unclear which part had caused it. "Well. How nice of her."
[14:55] <Minaplo> [Idris's expression remained quietly cheerful as he withdrew another sundae for himself.-
[15:00] <Minaplo> ["So. Winning against the Overseers." Said Idris. "It will have to remain very much an informal, mental thing. Things between us will remain peaceful, inshallah, but if they don't… That might be bad for us."]
[16:56] <Kayoko> "Oh yes. Stripping them of a dreadnought would be satisfying but shortsighted. That's a goal for later," she said, picking a few more blueberries off her sundae. "No, what annoys me is that we were forced to play to the terms they dictated. We lost the game before we started playing, and that can't happen twice."
[16:58] <Minaplo> ["What are the rules, then?"]
[17:23] <Kayoko> "Imaginary."-
[17:24] <Kayoko> She paused. "… hm, no, that's reductive. Ok… there are rules, but they are only made concrete when you understand the motivating forces of the players. Then you can extrapolate what the likely boundaries of a conflict will be."-
[17:24] <Kayoko> "If you're good enough, you may as well be able to see the future. By giving us the goal of the Virus, Conquerer understood he would lose nothing and achieved at least two major objectives, and we would have no other options. He was right."
[17:32] * Reiska is now known as Liane
[17:32] <Minaplo> ["Hmm. That seems to disadvantage us." Said Idris. "Conqueror is a lot freer to act than we are."]
[17:34] <Kayoko> "It's the Founding War problem again."
[17:35] <Minaplo> ["Oh?"]
[17:38] <Kayoko> "Caine relied on the UEF binding its own hands, which it quite reliably did. A few decades of peace hasn't left us any less reliable in that respect."
[17:42] <Minaplo> ["Then our first step should be finding what things Conqueror would tie his own hands for."]
[17:44] <Kayoko> "Exactly."
[17:49] <Minaplo> ["I can't scan his ship, but our best bet would be speaking to Violet… And possibly Kess. I'm unsure."]
[17:54] * Syntax (~if.atsiakajaal-asile.85-842-311-88|xatnyS#if.atsiakajaal-asile.85-842-311-88|xatnyS) has joined #frontierwar2
[17:56] <Kayoko> "That's my goal tomorrow. It's a social problem, I think," Kayoko said, "That works for me."-
[17:56] <Kayoko> "… did you see how he reacted to me speaking Seer?" she asked with a rather fierce excuse for a smile. "He didn't like that at all."
[17:58] <Minaplo> ["Perhaps we should refrain from doing it in the future, then, Captain." Said Idris seriously.]
[18:00] <Kayoko> "Probably sensible," she agreed, although the smile didn't fade in the slightest.
[18:15] <Minaplo> [Idris didn't respond. He took large scoops of his sundae, whilst staring down at Ahsa's Berth below.-
[18:16] <Minaplo> ["What do you think Conqueror wants with the things he found?"]
[18:39] <Kayoko> "They're a power structure defined by slavery and manipulation. If anyone was going to make the most of the Harvesters' legacy it would be a people like them, don't you think?"
[19:11] <Minaplo> ["I agree, but… That brings me to an even greater question." Said Idris. "From what I remember, the Harvesters were all destroyed, inshallah, and I thought the cenotaph on Zeruel IV to be nothing but a memorial. But now we've found two ruins."-
[19:12] <Minaplo> ["That suggests that there's more out there. But it seems strange to me that the Ancestors would dot this section of space with so many memorials, then expect those memorials to periodically cleanse their whole planet of life. It does not add up."]
[19:43] <Kayoko> "Oh I doubt they were just memorials," Kayoko said matter-of-factly. "Sure, I can see the Ancestors building a cenotaph to a species they found reprehensible just to salve their own conscience, but if the Watcher wasn't lying there'd be no reason to out outfit it with planet-scale weapons."-
[19:45] <Kayoko> "They were definitely there to hide something. The Ancestors weren't much for total destruction, as far as I can tell. They kept what was useful."
[19:54] <Minaplo> ["And they warded them to fill entities like me with dread." Said Idris. "I wondered if maybe they were covering some kind of… Toxic waste, perhaps. But the starmap remnants suggests that it's more complicated than that."]
[20:01] <Kayoko> "Yep. And whatever it is, it looks like it wasn't just something they could move, and the Ancestors could move quite a bit."
[20:07] <Minaplo> ["I think we can agree, though, that keeping the Conqueror from obtaining it is a worthy goal."]
[20:12] <Kayoko> "Of course."
[20:42] <Minaplo> ["I wish we knew more about them. If only there were a way to really talk to them…"]
[20:58] <Kayoko> "The Overseers? Or the Harvesters?"
[20:59] <Minaplo> ["I meant the Overseers, but I'm curious about both."]
[21:23] * Liane is now known as Reiska
[21:28] <Kayoko> "Oh, I'm curious about all of it. I really wish I'd been able to talk to that Watcher, that would've been fascinating…"-
[21:28] <Kayoko> She ate in silence for a while, before remembering something. "… I'm still happy we fixed the virus, of course. I just don't like losing."
[21:33] <Minaplo> [Idris chuckled.]
[21:36] <Kayoko> This time she just shrugged it off.-
[21:36] <Kayoko> "… So I take it I don't need to worry about you telling everyone who my parents are?"
[21:40] <Minaplo> ["You don't." Said Idris. "If you wanted them to know, they would already know, and it's not my place to decide that for you."]
[21:55] <Kayoko> "Good. Thanks."-
[21:55] <Kayoko> "Some of the other Evangelions I've worked with just figured it out by looking at me, even after I fixed my hair and eyes," she admitted. "So I figured you knew as well. I didn't realize you were one of mother's students, though."
[22:04] <Minaplo> ["Pretty much every Evangelion meets her at some point. She leaves an impression."]
[22:06] <Kayoko> "I'd never noticed."
[22:10] <Minaplo> ["My apologies."]
[22:28] <Kayoko> It was her turn to laugh.-